Hamilton Spectator

Sunday is Mother's Day, and I'm reminded that I've never held my mother, looked into her eyes and told her that I love her. I've never offered a soft kiss on her cheek. I've never even given my mother flowers. My mom died before I got the chance.

Telling Lies in Iraq is my choice for the name of the flick we can only hope will be made about former Iraqi minister of misinformation Mohammed Saeed Sahaf. If it's anything like a satirical Web site on this new cult figure, a site that once had an incredible 4,000 hits per minute, this movie will be stunning.

Jean and I are packing to return to Hamilton to deliver our first child. And at the top of my to-do-in-Hamilton list, besides "get diapers for the bambino," is watch a big, fat movie. There's a single theatre here in Sana'a, a town of one million, but considering it's infested with rats or something similarly revolting, I've avoided it.

Trying to galvanize sagging troops, one of Saddam Hussein's last public pronouncements was recently to formally call for Muslims everywhere to join his ranks and fight Islamic jihad, or holy war. Should we care?

Washington admits that it wants to shape the entire Middle East into a kinder place. Sooner or later, that goal may take the U.S. to Yemen's terrorist haven.

"We're going to err on the side of caution and stay in the house for a few days," is what I told a friend during a phone chat yesterday morning. Our self-imposed house arrest would mean Jean and I would miss a friend's birthday party and a weekly gathering of friends. Not much of a sacrifice, considering a few hours later four Yemeni protesters, including an 11-year-old boy, lay dead on the streets of this capital city. They were killed by Yemeni police guarding the American embassy.

If there is a time for everything -- a time to search and a time to give up, a time for love and a time for hate -- it would appear it's time for the Americans to blow Saddam and all that is his to Kingdom Come.

The Yanks' war plan sounds solid enough on paper. Capture land in Iraq quickly. Use it to set up bases for further attacks. Bomb Saddam's palaces and cut command centres from the rest of the country to quicken the government's collapse. Then make a seamless transition to military occupation. Don't get caught in ugly street fighting. Deliver food. Get Iraqis involved with a new economic plan. Unfurl the flag of democracy.

Fear is a funny thing. Along with other Commonwealth citizens, Jean and I were recently informed that most staff members of the British Embassy here are leaving and that we should consider the same.

It's Valentine's Day. Great fun. Two years ago today, I proposed to Jean. Her ring was presented in a restaurant, with the help of the official town crier, his booming voice, clanging bell and scroll. Moments later, along with thousands of others in London, Ont., we heard about our upcoming "royal wedding" on the radio.

And now, for a change, some good news from the Arabian Peninsula.

Jarring images of how an Islamic extremist burst into, of all places, a hospital in the last days of 2002, to fire bullets from his Kalishnikov into the heads of our friends will linger for a while. My wife Jean and I and some colleagues are still laying to rest what has become known across Yemen as 'The Jibla Tragedy.'

SANA'A, YEMEN ✦ The Yanks. We love 'em. We hate 'em. Indeed, Jean and I are still recovering from the news of the brutal slaying of threeU.S.aid workers, including a doctor friend, at Jibla missionary hospital. The killer, apparently an Islamic extremist, reportedly said he killed "to get closer to God." Right. And who better to kill than American Christians? It's killing two birds, innocent as they may be, with one stone. Indeed,U.S.foreign policy really has folks in a huff these days. In fact, many of us would bend over backward to disassociate ourselves from the Yanks. No?

When you're a humanitarian aid worker in a place like Yemen, the thought of being killed for no good reason is always there. When you talk with colleagues about security threats, sometimes you joke about the false impressions people back home in western countries tend to have about life in the Middle East.

Dear Santa: Thanks for last year's gift, the Gulliver's Travels book. I enjoyed the Houyhnhnms, those horse-like characters. So bright. So noble. And those savage Yahoos. So dim. So lost. Poor Gulliver couldn't see himself in them. But Gulliver really was a traveller. Like you Santa. That's why I'm writing. Distribution problems down here are getting worse.